 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2008-07-27 21:25
1. What percentage of your entire clarinet life have you employed it?
2. In your opinion, what are the advantages?
(Remember, I'm a newbie to this board so if this is a topic that gets mentioned often, I apologize in advance!)
[ Post retitled for clarity - GBK ]
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-07-27 21:34
I have tried a double lip embouchure in an experimental manner and loved the tone quality which had more substance and roundness, though I don't employ a double lip embouchure full time on clarinet. But I also play oboe and cor anglais which require a double lip embouchure.
Though I found it hard work on the right thumb due to the lack of solidity of the embouchure making the clarinet roll around a lot more than a single lip embouchure.
But I might persue a double lip embouchure to see if I can get something resembling the gorgeous tone Gino Cioffi had.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Jack Kissinger
Date: 2008-07-27 21:47
No need to apologize. As a newbie, there are many features of this remarkable site that you will learn about as you go. A very useful one is the search feature at the top of the Bulletin Boards (above the list of threads) and at the top of each thread. If you have a question that you think may have been covered before, it's a good place to start. In this case, if you click on it and type "double lip embouchure" without the quotes into the search engine, you'll get 752 hits. That should keep you busy for awhile.
If you're looking for a fun way to blow an afternoon or two, try browsing around the various links on the site's home page. You'll find some great resources and some interesting reading and listening.
Best regards,
jnk
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Author: MichaelR
Date: 2008-07-27 22:12
1. I started double lip just a few weeks after I started playing. Effectively, I've always employed it.
2. It doesn't allow you to bite.
After you tire of the search engine results here check Sherman Friedland's site for double lip information.
http://clarinetcorner.wordpress.com/?s=double+lip
His experience and comments were instrumental in getting me to choose double lip.
--
Michael of Portland, OR
Be Appropriate and Follow Your Curiosity
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2008-07-28 17:12
Perhaps mine is a-sorta-double in that I do not bite; teeth do not touch the mp. My teacher got me started immediately with it, in ,gulp, 1935.
richard smith
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-07-28 18:04
Although I do not play double lip I often encourage my students to try it for a while to get them to relax their embouchure and not bite. The advantage is that it can achieve that and tends to open your throat a little more as well. I think a very small percentage of players use double lip because of the pain involved in trying to switch until you build up a callous enough to play for long periods of time. Our assistant – Eb player in the BSO did that many moons ago and it did help him with his tone but he has a rather prominent build up on his top lip, not overly attractive. (At least I have no interest in giving him a kiss). I think if you can play double lip comfortably it has no down side, other than the callous, not the same for everyone though. The up side is that you might, I say might, get a richer tone, but then you might not. It didn’t do anything for me when I tried, but it did hurt. ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 A little Mozart on “single lip”.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2008-07-28 19:03
When I was in 9th grade I got braces on my teeth. I found it less painful to start a form of double lip at that time. Yes, I know...ouch! But, the dentist gave me wax to put on the braces. I had a wad of stuff under my upper lip, but it still beat learning the French Horn which is what my director wanted. The FH was much more difficult with direct pressure on the braces.
When I was out of braces (high school) I continued the double lip style although no one told me it was ok. I didn't feel legit. until I studied with Dr. Raphael Sanders and he played double lip and prefered it.
I feel it gives me a better tone and also I HATE the feel of the vibrations on my teeth when I bite the mouthpiece.
Some have said you can't stand and play clarinet double-lip, but that is utter nonsense. I play into a mike with a piano player and also on other type of gigs and I have no trouble at all standing and playing double-lip.
After 47 years of playing clarinet I can't imagine any other way.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2008-07-28 19:05
It's a good topic/question!
1. 99%
2. I think it is a nicer way of addressing the reed. Once read somewhere someone saying to surround the reed with cushions or rose petals, or something (it's a rather famous quote). The double-lip seems to "back off" the reed a bit more.
Bill Fogle
Ellsworth, Maine
(formerly Washington, DC)
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Author: autumnsilence
Date: 2008-07-29 00:45
I have always used the double lip emboucher ever since i started playing. Since i learned by myself and without lessons or a tutor (not counting middle school band) i never really knew if it made a difference or not. A few times two different band teachers said that you were supposed to have your teeth basically 'anchored' is what she used, against the top of the mouthpeice so i assumed i jus learned wrong but old habits die hard and i tried every once in a while to put my teeth against the MP but for some reason the vibrations of the clarinet while playing feels way too weird against my teeth having never done it before. But i soon figured out that many people also use the double lip emboucher and that is isnt 'wrong' yet again i dont think it matters if you emboucher is different from others.. considering if you can play, and play well then obviously that techniqueworks for you.. (and no bite marks get dented in the mouthpeice!)
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2008-07-30 04:01
I found this in my files, I posted it before but my opinion hasn't changed.
I play double lip like my teacher, (Iggy Gennusa) and his teachers, (Ralph McClean, and Daniel Bonade). I think it has to most potential to be the most non-obtrusive style of embouchure going. By non-obtrusive, I mean, it interferes with the reeds vibration the least.
Most clarinetists don’t sound as good as they could, not because they don’t posses a $550 mouthpiece made from reproduction chedeville rubber, or because they don’t have a bell or barrel cut from a 200 year old cocobolo tree. Clarinetist sound bad, because they inhibit the reed from vibrating. Most have bought into the mis-conception of embouchure. You cannot get a clarinet reed to vibrate with your embouchure. Only in the presence of pressurize air with the reed move. You can however stop the reed from vibrating with embouchure, by using too much pressure and doing it in the wrong spot.
Follow me on this:
A. Turn the mouthpiece sideways and look at the opening of the reed and mouthpiece curve.
B. Take your thumb and press the reed closed at the tip. Notice the ease at which you can accomplish this
C. Start moving your thumb down the reed applying the same pressure. Notice when you get close to the point where the reed leaves the mouthpiece table, it’s really hard to close the reed off at the tip.
D. If your bottom lip is on the tip side of the fulcrum point, where the reed leaves the mouthpiece, you are stifling the reed’s vibration. Most likely you are using a mouthpiece that’s more open than it needs to be or you are using a reed that’s too hard also.
The vicious circle starts: closing the reed off, playing sharp, getting a harder reed, one that’s not really well balanced, and using even more pressure to get it to work.
So in my opinion the first thing you need to do is start putting enough mouthpiece in your mouth. The more mouthpiece you take in, the less negative effect the embouchure can have. Take a look in Larry Guy’s book; in that photo Robert Marcellus has a lot of Kaspar shoved down his pie hole! Iggy put a lot of mouthpiece in his mouth, he had a very thin lower lip and it didn’t look like a lot, but if saw his reed it was.
So why double lip? It doesn’t really touch the reed. First off the list of absolutely great players who used it is the list of emulated players from the last century: Wright, Bonade, Gennusa, McClean. With the exception of Marcellus, who told my in a lesson in 1979 that if he could use it he would, and since that’s how I play that I should keep on using it. He also said that he rolled his top lip under, infront of his top teeth to get the benefit of opening up the oral cavity. That hits on what I feel is the main advantage of double lip. It drastically alters the oral cavity; it opens it up a lot. I can hear the difference when I record stuff using single and double. Secondly, both lips wrapped around the mouthpice is symmetrical, you get a really nice feel for the amount of pressure being used in the creation of your sound. But even Iggy’s beautifully formed double embouchure couldn’t vibrate the reed without air!
So here are a few double lip double lip fallacies.
1. You can’t play standing up with it. False, I play all day with double lip, on klezmer gigs and concerts I stand and play sometime over an hour continually.
2. You don’t have the stamina with double lip. My guess is, if you’re biting and not putting enough mouthpiece your mouth you don’t have a lot of stamina anyway. But you will be more aware of the fatigue with double lip. I will say this anything that you can do with single lip to screw up a sound; you can also learn to do with double lip.
3. Switching to double lip will screw up my technique. Well if you switch to double you become very aware of how much finger pressure you use and tension that is generated through your hands. And yes, if you’re using lots of this you will have to hit Baerman 3 and rethink your technique.
I use double lip with any student that comes to me for their first lessons. I get them put a good deal of mouthpiece in. I have them wrap both lips over their teeth and just blow. The results are fast, the kids sound good and it doesn’t take months. They get a good sound by page 5 of Rubank. That is until some stupid band director tells them that it’s wrong and fixes it until they sound bad.
If anyone give double lip a try for one month, I seriously doubt they will ever switch back. That being said, I don’t use it on bass Clarinet or Saxophone. I go with the Marcellus idea of rolling the top lip under in front of the teeth. The amount of mouthpiece that I use playing bass clarinet makes using it a little un-wieldy. But on basset horn and soprano sax I use double. It doesn’t matter what single reed mouthpiece goes in your mouth, you got to let the reed vibrate on it.
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2008-07-30 18:32
Tom, in speaking of Marcellus:
"...he rolled his top lip under, infront of his top teeth to get the benefit of opening up the oral cavity.
I also do this. It's my compensation for not having acheived the double embouchure...yet. The curled under upper lip seems to give my embouchure muscles added strength. I'm trying double embouchure on long tones for now. I like the sound but I can't do more that sustain notes with it right now.
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Author: jura
Date: 2008-12-22 18:24
What known modern clarnetists play double lips?( to receive audio or video for development)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-12-22 18:44
jura wrote:
> What known modern clarnetists play double lips?( to receive
> audio or video for development)
One the most visible to the general public is Richard Stoltzman ...GBK
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2008-12-22 18:48
In Ed's post there is mention of getting a callouse on the upper lip. Why should this occur? Do all players get a callouse on their lower lip?
I have played double lip for most of my 50+ years playing and don't have a callouse on either lip, am I doing something wrong?? OK I don't play 24 hours a day like some pro's. Also I only wrap a very small portion of each lip over the teeth, trying to build up most of the support from in front of the teeth.
I agree with most of the comments posted above but in addition would mention that I think a double lip encourages a more "rounded" development of the embouchure by bringing into play a much wider range of the facial muscles involved.
One downside for me is that I think it makes staccato a bit harder although I have seen other players feel quite the opposite.
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-22 19:14
I would very much like to see a list of famous, and well respected classical clarinetists of now who play double lip.
I hear a lot about about double lip on this board, but have basically never heard about people using it outside of this board. And people outside of America seem often horrified at the mention of double lip.
Who plays double lip now? Are there any international soloists who use double lip? How about members of major orchestras? I don't know of any. . .
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2008-12-22 19:16
I'm playing DL on bass for pp and/or lyrical passages. I can hear the others better that way, and that is crucial.
I'm playing SL on soprano. (mostly because I don't get any lyrical stuff there)
--
Ben
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Author: Ed
Date: 2008-12-22 19:43
I recently began playing double lip after playing single for my entire life. I had some down time from playing due to a severe back problem, followed by back surgery.
When I began to practice again, I realized that I was biting a bit to compensate for my lack of strength and stamina. I began to practice double lip to remedy this. I had long been one of those players that rolled the top lip and found it helpful.
Once I began to play double lip, I found that it put my oral cavity in a different, possibly more open position. My articulation felt more comfortable and the embouchure felt somewhat more natural and "organic". I also found that intervals and legato were better, possibly due to the change in my vocalization and less tendency to bear down with my jaw.
I have now played double for about 6 or so weeks. I played a concert a few weeks after starting it. So far I am very pleased with the results. Unless I find any drawbacks, I will likely continue.
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2008-12-22 20:20
Right from the start, 70 years ago. I liked it. Nor sore lips, no biting, no teeth marks on mpcs.
richard smith
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Author: Tom Piercy
Date: 2008-12-22 21:43
I play double lip.
I switched to double lip around 1999 under the guidance of Kalmen Opperman. Many, but not all, of his students play double lip. I loved the results and have never regretted making the change.
I'm not sure you can hear a difference in recordings, but I hear and feel a diference.
You can hear some samples at:
http://www.myspace.com/thomaspiercy
Tom Piercy
Post Edited (2008-12-22 22:03)
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Author: JessKateDD
Date: 2008-12-22 23:15
I once took a lesson from Gigliotti. The first thing he asked me was whether I was playing double lip. My reply was, "No, but I do play double lip about a quarter of the time." He said, "That's what I do!"
There are world class players who play single lip, and there are world class players who play double lip. My best advice is to try both embouchures and do what works best for you. If you are a single lip player and immediately sound better with double lip, it means you have a biting problem. You can fix it either by permanently switching to double lip, or by alternating between single and double until your single sounds just as good as the double. That's why I switch between the two - playing double lip occasionally keeps my single lip embouchure correct.
Incidentally, I loved Tom's very long post! It's funny because I use single and double exactly opposite of how he plays with them! I use single lip on soprano clarinets, which require a firmer embouchure. On bass and saxophone, where a looser embouchure is necessary, I play double lip.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2008-12-22 23:38
Not that it makes much difference to this discussion, but I'm not sure how much Bonade influenced McLane. According to the liner notes in the CD called "The Aritsry of Ralph McLane" McLane (b. 1906) studied with Hamelin until well into his 20s, first at New England Conservatory and then in Paris until 1932. It was only then that he came back to the U.S. and studied with Bonade. McLane played double lip, as did Harold Wright, who was one of McLane's students. I don't know whether his other students played double lip - players like Mordecai Appelbaum, Anthony Ciccarelli, Ignatius Gennusa (I think Tom said "Iggie" played double lip), Stanley Hasty, and Kalmen Opperman.
Bonade, to my knowledge, played with a single lip embouchure that featured pulling the upper lip tightly back against the top teeth to *simulate* the effect of double lip on the soft palate and the rest of the oral cavity (what someone here referred to as a more open throat). By doing this, it's very possible to achieve the same result as double lip.
BTW, it most certainly is _possible_ to bite while playing double lip - but the result is twice as painful as is biting on only one lip. The advantage of double lip in terms of biting is that the embouchure lets you know in no uncertain terms that you're doing it (which may be one reason why many players who try double lip give up on it - it fails to solve their biting problem and hurts more).
Karl
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Author: jura
Date: 2008-12-23 12:17
Dear colleagues, explain the contradiction which I observe in discussion of it .All opinions about double lips only positive why so few people use it?
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Author: Roger Aldridge
Date: 2008-12-23 12:31
I use a double-lip 100% of the time on clarinet, bass clarinet, and saxophone. Others have already voiced the benefits they get from a double-lip and I've found those to be true for me. An additional benefit I get from using a double-lip on all of my reed instruments is there is no embouchure shock in doubling situations where I'm making quick changes between horns.
In my case I first learned a double-lip embouchure on saxophone when I was a child. I took private lessons at a music studio from when I was 8 through high school. I had several teachers and I don't remember ANY of them saying anything about a double-lip versus single-lip embouchure. However, when I arrived at Berklee and had my first lesson with Joe Viola he quickly exclaimed "You're using a double-lip embouchure!". He wanted me to use a single-lip. So, we spend an entire semester completely tearing down and rebuilding my embouchure and other fundamental aspects of saxophone performance. Interesting, on clarinet I only remember using a single-lip.
I used a single-lip for many years. However, around 4 years ago I started experimenting with a double-lip and I really liked the results. I first started using it on bass clarinet and then saxophone. Bb clarinet was the last to be converted. Now, I'm 100% happy with the double-lip.
Roger
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Author: cxgreen48
Date: 2008-12-23 12:32
I think it's just single lip is more standard, and not many players are aware of the benefits of double lip embouchure.
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-23 13:06
Is there really no one who can name a few famous, top clarinetists of today who use double lip? So that we can compare some recordings?
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Author: Steve Hartman
Date: 2008-12-23 13:42
I switched to double-lip after having played the clarinet for 10 years, also under the tutelage of Kalmen Opperman. I started during a holiday break and never went back to playing single-lip. One must play for very short periods at first in order to develop endurance without over-tiring the muscles or too much upper-lip soreness. I use the double-lip embouchure on the E-flat clarinet as well as the bass clarinet. I'm not as famous as Richard Stoltzman but I can be heard on a recording of Crusell's Concertos op. 1 and op. 11 and Concertante op. 3 on the Centaur Label CRC2495, recorded in 2000. I think it's still available.
Fact check: does anyone know for sure whether Bonade played double-lip?
Happy Holidays to all.
-Steve Hartman
NYC
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2008-12-23 14:27
Perhaps George Silfies uses it. He studied with Mclane.
richard smith
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2008-12-23 14:45
First, you don't need to limit your listening comparisons to only currently active players. Recordings are available all the way back to the 1920s, and those since the 1950s are reasonably decent sonically.
Second, most players, unless they're answering a direct question or participating in a discussion group like this, don't necessarily advertise what they do. Often they don't even really tell their own students what they actually do themselves - they instead suggest or prescribe solutions they think will help the student solve his own problems. So it's often difficult to tell what players are actually using any given technique, including double lip. Someone suggested that Stoltzman uses double lip. There are plenty of recordings of Harold Wright, some with the Baltimore Symphony and many more with the Boston Symphony. You'd have to know when a Philadelphia Orchestra recording was made to know if you're hearing McLane or not, but a CD of his playing, The Artistry of Ralph McLane, has been issued by Boston Records. There are probably a number of current players who use double lip who just don't make a big deal about it, so few people outside their circle of students, maybe even within that circle, would know for certain. I studied with Anthony Gigliotti and, although he introduced _me_ to double lip as a way to solve some specific problems I was having at one point, JessKateDD's post was the first I'd ever heard that he used double lip himself.
The best single lip players and the best double lip players sound equally good - one approach is not inferior to the other and neither is immediately identifiable by a characteristic sound - like most questions of technical approach or equipment choice, it's a question of which way the player finds it easier to produce the sound he/she wants to produce. Because of the way the original question was posed, what you're reading in this thread is mostly written by players who have come to prefer double lip, which is why you aren't reading much about disadvantages. Players who've tried double lip and hated it can't really answer the questions Claire Annette asked.
Karl
Post Edited (2008-12-23 14:46)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2008-12-23 14:56
He doesn't describe a double lip embouchure in his book (see my reply to Tom Pulwalski's post). Since he, and Gigliotti after him, described pulling the top lip back firmly against the top teeth without tucking it under them as a way to simulate double lip without the disadvantages, it could be he was first taught to play double lip and adopted his single lip approach as a departure from it, but I'm guessing and have no source whatever.
Karl
Post Edited (2008-12-23 14:57)
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Author: srattle
Date: 2008-12-23 15:07
I ask my question for a few reasons.
I have heard Harold Wright recordings. What I'm wondering is if there are contemporary examples. If most of the very top players are playing single lip. . .maybe that's a good indication that it's a better system.
If there are, however, many of the top players using this system, it would be interesting to know. I don't see a problem asking this question, I think it's quite important. 1000s of people here ask what equiptment everyone uses. . .which I would think is a lot less important to playing the clarinet then the basic embouchure set up.
I personally often do hear a difference between single and double lip playing.
With double I hear usually a very sweet sound, but one that doesn't sound so stable. I also notice (and this could just be the personal playing of the people) that most double lip players (including Wright) seem to stay in a pretty comfortable dynamic range, especially not playing so loud.
The last thing, than this is the most important thing I've noticed, is that I tend not to hear double lip players sounding angry, or persistent, or aggressive. I believe these are also important sound qualities and emotions as well as sweet, lyrical, or melancholy.
If most of the people who we revere as the best players of now are playing single lip, maybe that's a good sign to what is better? If there are lots of big names who play double lip that I don't know about, I would like to know. Maybe I would be interested in trying it out if I could hear a little more variety, but I find it a little surprising that so many people here rave about double lip, yet can't give any well known examples from after Harold Wright.
I ask all of this because I'm interested about it, and every person I talk to off this board has told me that double lip is NOT a good technique.
I hope someone can enlighten me further
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Author: Roger Aldridge
Date: 2008-12-23 15:33
Most of my playing is in jazz settings. It's been my experience that a double-lip does not limit how aggressive I get with my horns or the range of emotional expression. For me, it's been the opposite -- with a double-lip I have a sense of pouring more of myself into the instrument.
Roger
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2008-12-23 16:15
I'd be interested to know in what level players you hear these differences and how you know what kind of embouchure they're using. If you're listening to single players playing with first one, then the other in a sort of A/B comparison, the player will naturally sound more secure playing the way he/she is used to.
I think the fact that you can't guess by listening to contemporary recordings, since some of the players are bound to be using some form of double lip, is a possible indication that a good player can sound good, i.e. sound secure with a pleasing, musically appropriate, controlled sound, good dynamic range and well controlled articulation, no matter how he approaches embouchure. Even within single and double lip, there are variations - some players take more lip into the mouth (top, bottom or both), some less, some players don't draw their lips in over their teeth at all (that's double lip, too, but not what most people mean by the term), some players take lots of mouthpiece into their mouths, some less, some play on very stiff reeds with mouthpiece facings that accept them, some play with very soft reeds on mouthpieces that accept them, a few players somewhere, I suspect, still play with the reed on top.... This discussion has, from the names that have come up so far, had a distinctly American focus, but there are lots of excellent non-American players, many of whom you or I wouldn't know by name, only by their orchestral affiliations, who have lots of different ways of guiding air into the mouthpiece and controlling the reed's vibrations. This vast variety *does* in some ways make the discussion of "which embouchure is better" nearly equivalent to "what mouthpiece/reed/instrument does ... use?" because it's ultimately the player's conception and not the physical issues of how he/she realizes it that determines how he/she sounds.
The choices a player makes should be based on what enables him/her most easily to realize his/her musical conceptions. The choice isn't one of result or goal, it's one of means, very like the choices of mouthpieces, reeds, instruments, ligatures and all the other things you mention. And, as has been observed repeatedly in this thread, the choice of double or single lip needn't be a permanent or unvarying one.
There is only one reason why anyone would seriously be concerned with which is "better" - unless a player's interest is in trying to decide for him/herself which to use, then the whole discussion is academic and a little pointless. If that's indeed the reason for a player's interest, then the best answer, after all is said by others who already have made a choice, is to try both ways and reach his/her own conclusion. Ultimately it isn't a question of "Should I play like [fill in the name of a major player]" but one of "How can I best produce the most musical result I'm capable of?" Ultimately, that choice can be made without hearing a single recording.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2008-12-23 17:34
When was the article you cite (which comes up as "404 Not Found" when I try to bring it up from your 2006 post) written? Is there another source for the article?
Karl
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Author: Ed
Date: 2008-12-23 19:35
FWIW- Steve Hartman and Jon Manasse play double lip. Jon's teacher the late David Weber was also a well known advocate.
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Author: Steve Hartman
Date: 2008-12-24 01:49
Yes I do play double-lip but Jon Manasse does not and he sounds terrific. Go figure!
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Author: asabene
Date: 2008-12-24 02:26
I don't really ever use double lip... anyway, here is a Robert Marcellus quote from that interview of his that is floating around the internet...
"Oh yes, another misconception is that double lip gives a fuller sound. Quite the contrary. It gives a smaller sound."
I can see why double lipping can help prevent biting (thus it's a good exercise in my opinion), but when I double lip it then feels like I'm not getting enough pressure on the mouthpiece and my sound becomes flimsy... I mean... you kind of have to bite a little to get a good sound, not to the point where it starts cutting off your sound, but just to keep a little pressure going... I personally am convinced that every clarinet players bites a little, regardless of what embouchure they are using...
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Author: Ed
Date: 2008-12-24 02:59
Thanks Steve for clarifying that info. Unless I am mistaken, Jon did use double lip at one time. Then again, maybe my memory is finally going on me! :-o
Post Edited (2008-12-24 03:05)
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Author: asabene
Date: 2008-12-25 01:39
Ya, he doesn't use it so far as I know... I took a short lesson with him a couple of weeks ago and I don't recall him double lipping...
I decided after reading this board to see again if double lip would work for me... pretty much the same result as before... sound got kind of weak... and there was then so little pressure on the mouthpiece that I was playing kind of flat... just not for me... and my goodness did it hurt!
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Author: Tom Puwalski
Date: 2008-12-25 12:58
Balance your reed, put more mouthpiece into your mouth buy pushing up with your right thumb. And pressurize your oral cavity. it will sound strong, be intune and not hurt! When one does something incorrectly one gets incorrect results, so it you got the same results as last time then figure out what you did wrong try it again. There are certain mouthpiece reed combinations that require a certain amount of pressure to work, if yours is one of them then less pressure will work less well.
Tom Puwalski, former soloist with the US Army Field Band, Clarinetist with The Atonement, and Author of "The Clarinetist's Guide to Klezmer"and most recently by the order of the wizard of Oz, for supreme intelligence, a Masters in Clarinet performance
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Author: jura
Date: 2008-12-25 14:48
The sound, legato really better.Problem in loss of stability.
Time will correct it?
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-12-26 10:42
I play double lip because that's how my first teacher taught me...in 1939. Although I never asked fellow players I suspect most of them were taught that way also.....back in those days. I have a theory about the "why" of DL :
If you look at photos of the old time New Orleans players it appears that many have dental problems. It is my impression that the upper teeth are the first to go and if one has NO upper teeth one just has to play double lip. Now, younger readers here have no comprehension of the fact that "in the old days" dental hygiene was not as common as it is today. So....maybe upper teeth dental problems was the inspiration for DL. Going back even further we find that at one time the clarinet was played with the reed on top. WHY? Again, maybe dental problems. Perhaps as dental health became more popular....due to better economic times.....DL was associated with toothless clarinet players and was looked down upon by clarinet intelligensia. Further: Why is it that most sax players play Single Lip....and use looser embouchures than clarinet players?
And why are mouthpiece cushions so popular. And finally: Why do double reed players use DL exclusively? (Tooth in cheek comment!) Happy New Year.
Bob Draznik
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Author: tdinap
Date: 2008-12-26 22:06
I play double lip, as suggested to me by Julie Vaverka, a double-lipper and student of Harold Wright who until she passed away was one of the top freelancers and teachers in the Boston area. Also, as someone mentioned earlier, Richard Stoltzman, Kalmen Opperman, and many of Opperman's students play double lip. My guess is there are still some players in the Boston area (and probably elsewhere) who use it and just don't advertise it, although it is admittedly not very common these days and may be going out of style somewhat (a well-known professor/performer in the UK told me last spring that nobody in Britain uses it, and that "it'd be agony" for her).
It seems to me that it tends to be one of those things that's sort of "inherited" from teachers who use and/or promote the technique. If your teacher isn't a major double lip advocate, you're probably not going to end up playing that way.
I think it's a very personal thing--some people's oral cavities and facial structure are more suited to one or the other, and some are just more subjectively comfortable with one. I would think that most good players are capable of sounding good on either one, and double lip is less common because it requires more conditioning.
[edit]I also just remembered the following paper, written for a doctoral dissertation in the Teacher's College at Columbia University. If you've got a subscription to ProQuest, you can read the whole thing, if not, the abstract is still fairly interesting. http://app.cul.columbia.edu:8080/ac/handle/10022/AC:P:16191 [/edit]
Tom
Post Edited (2008-12-26 22:10)
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